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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!qantel!hplabs!hp-pcd!orstcs!richardt
From: richardt@orstcs.UUCP (richardt)
Newsgroups: net.suicide
Subject: Drugs, Gaming, and Suicide
Message-ID: <18400001@orstcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 15-Sep-85 22:07:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: orstcs.18400001
Posted: Sun Sep 15 22:07:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 05:32:33 EDT
Organization: Oregon State University - Corvallis, OR
Lines: 46
Nf-ID: #N:orstcs:18400001:000:2475
Nf-From: orstcs!richardt    Sep 15 18:07:00 1985

Okay, folks, being a gamer and a friend of many people who use, and many who
do not use, drugs, Here's my $.02.

I agree that drugs and a potential suicide are a bad combination, as are
D & D games and a potential suicide.  For that matter, the movie "The Wall" 
(Pink Floyd, if anyone doesn't know) can make someone who is not suicidal
but merely a good empath feel that "gee, I wonder what it feels like to hit
a concrete floor after a two story fall?"  The basic problem is not with
drugs, Pink Floyd, or D & D.  The problems are with people who are 
(1) irresponsible in the first place, and (2) who are potentially suicidal
anyway.  I have known too many (emotional) healers who happened to br 
responsible drug users, or happened to like Pink Floyd music and movies, or
who happened to play D & D to say that any of these will (unassisted) cause
a suicide.  The catch:  All of the above are (in some cases *VERY* real)
fantasy trips which are complex enough that a person can become involved with
the fantasy and lose touch with reality.  What we should encourage is empathy
and responsibility and understanding, rather than discouraging anything.  I've
dealt with enough potential suicides and healers to know that none of these will
make a person commit suicide unless they are already leaning in that direction
anyway.  Also: a comment on fantasy trips and suicide.  In a large number of
cases, a directed fantasy trip is just what is needed to bring a person *back*
from the edge.  Unfortunately, drugs (unless you're a Don Juan type) are far
too often an undirected fantasy trip.  In a potential suicide, drugs simply 
extend the person's own internal fantasies, which are at that time pointing 
towards suicide.  Thus, an instance of drug usage may push a person over the
edge.  Responsible drug usage won't, however.  BTW, hypnosis is in many cases
a highly effective method of directing a fantasy trip which I have had a 
reasonable amount of success with.

				orstcs!richardt
				"The Apparition"
Richard Threadgill
104 S 20th 		<-- SnailMail address soon to be changed
Philomath Or 97370 

"All of them are in tune, the ones who really love you,
	walk together outside the wall
 Some hand in hand,
	Some gathered together in bands;
 The bleeding hearts, and the artists
	Make their stand
 And when they've given you their all,
	Some stagger and fall
 After all, it's not easy,
	Banging your heart against some mad bugger's wall"
			-Pink Floyd, "The "Wall"


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